In production systems, a material object typically is a complete, structured list of the components or materials that make up a product. The structured list contains the description, the quantity, and unit of measure of the components. The material object typically includes a hierarchy of nodes with each node having one or more material positions. Each material position generally has one material that may be used to produce the product. A material is typically selected from a corresponding material position based on a selection condition. The selection condition is typically a Boolean expression. A material from a material position is generally selected for production of the product only if the selection condition for the material position is true. A restriction object typically holds one or more restriction conditions that typically have information about the quantity restrictions for one or more materials.
For example the material object may have a list of materials for manufacturing a passenger car. A material at a material position may be configured to be chosen for the production of the car based on a selection condition such as a red car for sale in European countries. The restriction object may have a restriction condition that limits the supply of the material to 500 pieces a day.
The current production systems have the material objects and the restriction objects as independent objects with no integration between them. The restriction condition for a material is generally assigned to the selection condition. Thus there is a need to know the material positions in the material object that have the selection condition assigned to them. As there is no integration between the restriction object and the material object, it is very difficult to find out the material positions in the material object. There may be several restriction conditions defined for various materials in the restriction object resulting in several production bottlenecks at various material positions in the material object. The absence of integration between the restriction object and the material object makes it very difficult to determine the position of the bottlenecks in the material objects. Thus there is no transparency of information as the bottlenecks are not visible by looking at the material object.
Furthermore the absence of integration between the material object and the restriction object may lead to data inconsistency. For example, a material may be deleted from the material object and a restriction condition for the material may still exist in the restriction object.